Scotland’s Year of Homecoming has generated an extraordinary degree of interest in the idea of ‘journeying’. For instance, several new biographies of Robert Burns have been published recently which resurrect the old debate concerning what the consequences would have been if Burns had left for Jamaica in 1786. The successful publication of his Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Language, meant that the journey was never taken. Burns headed instead for Edinburgh; and Scottish culture and literature were the direct beneficiaries of his changed circumstances.

A lot of ink has been spilt, then, over a journey that never happened, but much less on a journey that did.

Concurrent with the Burns biographies, but with none of their fanfare, a book has been published that tells the story of a plant collector called Archibald Menzies.   Monkey Puzzle Man is the first full biography of Menzies, who was born in the parish of Weem near Aberfeldy in Perthshire, Scotland.

The title is derived from the story of Menzies returning to Britain in 1795 from a banquet with the Irish Captain-General of Chile, who went by the remarkable appellation Don Ambrosio Bernardo O’Higgins de Vallenar. During the meal, Menzies is said to have pocketed some Araucaria nuts which were subsequently used to introduce the Monkey Puzzle tree to Britain. The authenticity of the story is matter of some debate though author James McCarthy supports it here.

What is certain is that the Chilean visit was an unanticipated stopover on the return trip to Britain from an area of the world where Menzies had collected many more plants and trees. He was surgeon and botanist on HMS Discovery with Captain Vancouver.

Until now, Menzies’s influence as a plant collector and a source of connection between Scotland and British Columbia has gone largely unrecognized except by specialists. Yet, his work in British Columbia still affects the landscape of contemporary Scotland. For instance, one of the 190 species he collected was the Sitka Spruce which flourished in Scotland just as it had in the similar climatic environment of British Columbia. Today Sitka is the subject of a lively debate on the issue of whether its ever-increasing presence is a benefit or a detriment to the Scottish countryside.

One of the most interesting elements in Monkey Puzzle Man is the author’s explication of the strained relationship between Menzies and George Vancouver. Though Vancouver captained the Discovery, Menzies reported directly to the redoubtable Sir Joseph Banks, Director of Kew Gardens in London and personal friend to George 111. It was Banks who issued Menzies with his instructions for the voyage and Banks who insisted, to Vancouver’s distress, that a plant hutch be constructed on the quarter-deck of the Discovery to nourish the plants and seeds that Menzies would bring on board.

The tension generated by the plant hutch issue boiled over on the return journey to Britain. Vancouver had Menzies confined to his cabin towards the end of the voyage. And there were other things that the two men saw differently. Vancouver appears to have taken little interest in native cultures and was slow to distinguish one from another. Menzies had a keen interest in native cultures, went out of his way to record them and had a facility for picking up different native languages.

The two men even disagreed about the landscape around them. Menzies found the coast of British Columbia awe-inspiring and reminiscent of his native Scotland; Vancouver was less impressed describing the land around the  Inside Passage as ‘desolate inhospitable country as the most melancholy creature could be desirous of inhabiting’.

Though Menzies was careful not to undermine Vancouver, he did sometimes criticize him in letters to Banks. He wrote, for instance, that Vancouver Island should ‘with more propriety be named after his Majesty’ i.e. King George Island.

Menzies, however, does appear himself on maps of British Columbia as a result of his association with George Vancouver.  Menzies Bay and Mount Menzies, north of Campbell River, commemorate the plant collector’s passage though that area.

He also has approximately 100 plants named after him though there are several others that should bear his name. One of the species Menzies recorded was the Douglas Fir, the most commercially in western North America. Menzies named the tree for his fellow Scottish botanist, David Douglas, but made sure that the correct attribution was hidden in the scientific name Pseudotsuga menziessii.

Coincidentally, the book we’re talking about appeared at the same time as a project was undertaken to find the tallest Pseudotsuga menziessii in Scotland. It turned out to be the 63.79 metre high Stronardron Fir near Dunans Castle in Glendaruel, Argyll. The tallest in Canada is 94.3 metres and stands in the upper Coquitlam watershed. Behind the comparison lurks the humble figure of Archibald Menzies and his remarkable investigation of the plant life of the Pacific Northwest.

Harry McGrath

The author of this review, Harry McGrath is, with Graeme Murdoch, director of Cultural Connect Scotland and organiser of the Canada-Scotland cross cultural photographic exhibition, This Is Who We Are. The exhibition is currently on tour throughour Scotland as part of Homecoming Scotland 2009.

Monkey Puzzle Man: Archibald Menzies Plant Hunter is by James McCarthy and issued by Whittles Publishing, in association with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

The images above are out of copyright and in the public domain. They show,  from the top:

• HMS Discovery
• Archibald Menzies
• Captain George Vancouver